


Karn

by toujours_nigel



Series: krishna, kunti, o kounteyo [2]
Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Genre: Chromatic Source, Gen, Hindu Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 12:44:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Krishn, before departing from Hastinapur during the doot-parv, speaks with Karn</p>
            </blockquote>





	Karn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dhobi ki Kutti (dhobikikutti)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhobikikutti/gifts).



> Dhobi ki Kutti, I'm not sure this isn't presumptuous, but, um. I hope you kinda like it. <3

Elephant keepers are, by professional necessity, like their charges slow to anger and slow to forget. Unlike other royal retainers they need not heed the power plays of the palace, since their animals were too precious to waste, and each would ride to war only with its chosen rider. It is the best of places to come to to tell secrets, the elephant enclosures of Hastinapur. Better yet for him, since Anga still gives Hastinapur many of its elephants, and the men, like their mounts, have a long memory for loyalty.

Krishn looks about him, at the great sheds and the tall men going about their tasks with silent efficiency, and turns a radiant smile on him. “I grew up in places like this. Though the animals were usually smaller. It is good sometimes, to remember who we thought we were when we were young.”

He does not say, “When I was young I thought I was a prince and was beaten for it.” He does not say anything. He has never had Krishn so close, so seemingly free of all burdens and plans, and cannot quite understand how the trap has been set. He opts like a good hunter for silence; one of his elephants has calved, and he thinks it might make a good gift for his eldest grandchild, who is nearly seven now and of an age to value private possessions: the calf is perfect in all respects and, at even a week’s age, already fearless and friendly.

Krishn says, “It is better to know who we truly are, brother.”

It has come to this. But it is futile to tell himself that he had not known it when he climbed into Krishn’s chariot, when he brought them here. “I know who I am. King of Ang; friend of the Kauravs; husband; father; Adhirath and Radha’s son. My lord, I know it well.” 

“They found you, but you are not theirs.” 

“Does it make you, my lord, any less Yashoda’s son, that she did not birth you? Mothers are of many kinds.” 

Krishn’s smiles are famed, and the way he can speak to the raw core of the human heart, past all defences and decencies. It is a strange thing to see them now when he has heard of them the length of his sons’ lives and longer yet, and find them as beautiful as fire. “A new bond may not sever an old tie, but it must also be given its place. I have left the fields of Vraj and Vrindavan years longer than you have held a bow in your hands. Men can only accept the truths of their life, and never change them.”

“My father changed me from foundling to child; Suyodhan changed me from charioteer to king. These are my truths. I’m a man tied in every limb, my lord, a new bond has no place to find purchase.”

 “Your mother was a princess, and your father a god.” They have drawn close in speaking, as though a whisper is the greatest volume that they dare risk, men who can bring regiments to attention with a single shout on the field of battle; Krishn puts one hand on his breastplate as though to underscore a point. “You cannot hide from it.”

He in his golden breastplate and greaves, born battle-ready. “Shall I style myself Parth, then? Would it please you?”

He thinks no-one has seen this, or seen it for decades: Krishn startled for a moment before regaining composure. “You know of it.”

“Knowledge comes to me always after it should.”

“You may still make use of this knowledge; it has come to you most opportunely on the eve of battle. You may save thousands.”

That at last draws laughter from him. “Am I a brahman, that you think to bribe me with the promise of saving lives? Death in battle is glorious to a kshatriya. And I shall die, in this battle: you will not rob me of it.”

“You prophesise loss. Should not a kshatriya see only victory before him?”

“A young man going into battle with his blood up, such a warrior can see only triumph. To us old generals, who have been fighting longer than such men have been alive, the stench of defeat wafts from every battle-plan. And if you come to me for prophecy, Krishn, be joyous: I see Yudhishtir enthroned and flanked by his brothers; I see Arjun triumphant.”

“I see you in Yudhishtir’s place, crowned with the double crowns of Hastinapur and Indraprasth. All will bow before you.”

“Hastinapur knows well how to set aside eldest sons, and I, my lord, am no Pandav.”

“The law says that you are, who are the first fruit of Pritha’s womb. Who can force you to set aside your right? Yudhishtir won’t, will Duryodhan?”

Yudhishtir might wish it easier than Suyodhan, but Krishn is not speaking, after all, of the inclinations of men but of his power over them. Suyodhan too, for all his pride, yields some men power over him; he will bend the knee to his dearest friend now proven his blood though it might kill him. “How long have you known?”

“For some years. Truth reveals itself at the best time so that we may know how best to use it.”

“Secrets fester in the heart and poison the mind of any man.” But it is worse than useless to argue with Krishn, and after a moment he sighs. “What would you have of me, lord?”

“Declare yourself. There are those who will support your claim and others who will confirm the truth of it. Take the throne that has long been denied you.”

“And Kunti Mother of Kings?”

“Will welcome you as the child she wishes she had never turned loose.”

“I have grandchildren of my own, the elder is seven, the son of my daughter. I have sons who are older now than I was when I was crowned King of Ang.”

“And now they might see you crowned King of Hastinapur and Indraprasth, see their own futures secured. They are older than the sons of Yudhishtir or Duryodhan, they would be kings after you and their sons after them.”

“They are the grandsons of a charioteer.”

Krishn sets hands upon his greaves, draws him abruptly closer. “They are the grandsons of a god. Would you deny them, Suryaputr?”

“I have a kingdom to leave them. For a charioteer’s son it is no mean legacy.” The strength in Krishn’s grip is unimaginable; so might an eagle hold a mouse gently within the cage of its great claws, so might Garuda hold an elephant.

“On the eve of the greatest war Bharat has known I come to you and offer you peace. Will you, Vasusen Karn, you who have loathed all your actions these many years, will you refuse me?”

He knows he will break his hand, against the shining metal of his greaves and the implacable bones of Krishn’s fist, faster than he can break the grip holding him close: but it is very difficult, still, to simply stand quietly, pressed so close to Krishn that he can see the play of colour in his deep eyes, that he can see the translucence of the dark skin beside the eyes and at the corner of the lush mouth. He is afraid as he has never been that in a moment he will say yes without knowing what he means, that he will surrender his will to Krishn and do as he is commanded. “Men come into consciousness at five years of age,” he says and it sounds the final plea of the supplicant. “I have lived this life for sixty-five years with full knowledge of my self; it is too late to know new truths.”

“When I was twenty I was told that I was a Prince of the yadavs. That was a new truth and strange to my mind. But you have known for years that you are not the man you have been told you are. Why else have you striven to take your true place?”

“There should be no obstacles in the path of a warrior’s progress. Ever have I striven to make it so.”

Krishn turns him loose, smiles expansively. “I remove all obstacles from your path. You shall be King of all that you and Arjun have added to the lands of your fathers, you shall be flanked by the greatest of the Pandavs and Kauravs, you shall be feted by all men. No ruler in all Aryavart will be your match.”

“And the Pandavs will forget their hatred of me, and I mine?”

“Do you hate the Pandavs?”

“Only the one you love. For the rest, as a soldier feels on the field of battle about those in the enemy’s colours.”

“And for your brothers? For we must give them their true station, though they do not know to give you yours.”

“I have not thought of it.” He does not want to, it closes his throat and shears at his spine. He has been so neatly an enemy for so very long, since the youngest of them were scarcely men: he cannot now stop and untangle himself from all the years of knowledge. Through anger and indifference they shine already unbearably bright, he will be blind in looking at them through loving eyes, these his brothers who despise him. “Oh, Murari, you are cruel to me beyond bearing.”

“To you, cousin, I would be kinder than to any man. Look what gifts I bring you: a name and a throne and a family.”

“And the family that is mine, what of it?” He can allow himself the dream for a breath of time: nothing Krishn says sounds impossible while one listens only to Krishn, and, oh, he has earned his little rest, his little delusions. He knows already that he will die, if it is now at Krishn’s hands while he stands defenceless and unarmed, that is still a death of high honour. And it is such a story as he had never dared dream, even when he was young and full of hope for sweet things.

“Your sons will have for uncles the best warriors, for preceptors the best Brahmans; your children and grandchildren will live with their cousins in palaces at Indrapasth as they do at Ang. Your mother Radha will tell your mother Pritha of the son they share in birth and rearing. Your wives will inhabit the fragrant gardens of Indraprasth where no man has dominion.”

“I have but one,” he says, and, when Krishn stares at him, adds, “I married twice, in my youth and abiding by my father’s wishes, but Supriya died in the way of women; Vrushali has been my only queen all the years of my children’s lives.” He keeps his women very little isolated: they have free reign in Ang, and Vrushali journeys often to Hastinapur with him, and his daughter to Ang with her husband and children. They are known faces among his friends and Vrushali, at the very least, had met Draupadi decades ago, and has since asked him at every turn how well she looks now; she sits with Bhanumati for hours and teases Suyodhan with perfect equanimity. His father chose well, in choosing her. It is unthinkable that Krishn, who knows everything, does not know how many wives he has. They have baited the trap, and not only with promises of fraternal love.

“Vasusen, would not you become truly a part of your family?”

“Wed Draupadi? Have I your meaning?” He can barely speak the words. Krishn has the measure of him, he is shaking like a boy laying hands for the first time on a woman or a weapon, untried and afraid. Wed Draupadi.

Krishn is looking at him, distant like a god, smiling and splendid. “She is the Queen of the Pandavs; whatever other wives they might have, she has them all. Would you not have everything that has been denied you?”

“There are words,” he says, quieter even than before, “for a woman with many husbands, and I have called her all of them. Krishn, you cannot offer gifts the giver is ignorant of.”

“If you declare yourself a Pandav she will marry you.”

When she stepped out of the flames and became Panchali, he was already a man in his third decade: in her wedding finery, flanked by her brothers, she had looked to him like the fledgeling of a flame-bird who had just pecked its way out of the shell, fiery already but still easy to injure. He has seen her since in full regalia as Queen of Indraprastha, and stripped of all royal splendour indomitably naked in a gaming-hall, her thin, beautiful body upright and her eyes burning like coal: nobody dared look at her save him. Wed Draupadi. It is a thought to laugh at, that Krishn who calls himself her friend thinks to give her away like a trembling virgin in marriage. “My lord, she has never done aught she did not wish, and she could have married me at her swayamvar had she chosen so.”

Krishn grips his hand, tight over the greaves again, but a more desperate grasp than before. “She will have you, my word on it. Ease your mother’s heart, cousin, and call the Pandavs your brothers. Wed Draupadi, rule Indraprasth, prevent this war.”

He thinks of the beauty of her, the proud bearing, the set of the jaw, the darkly intelligent eyes. If he signs assent he can trap her in fragrant garlands and set his hands on the deep curve of her narrow waist, run his fingers through that mass of heavy hair: in the gaming-hall it had swung out after her like an uttariya, bent out of shape where Duhshasan had wrenched her around by it; her thighs had been bloody and her body had trembled in anger and exhaustion after he had ordered her stripped: even then he would have had her, even thus, in all the unadorned magnificence of her rage.

He says, “Take me home to Hastinapur, my lord. I’ve a wife already and brothers enough.”

 

* * *

 

In Hastinapur people have been looking for him.

He has time enough to clamber from Krishn’s chariot and enter the palace through the stables, but no more. Then there is a stifling crush of arms and Suyodhan’s voice murmuring into his hair.

He frees himself with difficult care from the embrace and rights his greaves, Suyodhan’s uttariya. “Did you think he’d killed me?”

“I did not know what to think.” Suyodhan grips him close again, hands bruising around his arms. “Only that you were gone and the Yadavs knew where you were. What did Krishn want of you?”

He has given Suyodhan everything, since they first met: every shred of loyalty and all things valour can accomplish. And Suyodhan has given him a title and a throne and a place in the world among the rulers of men. Vrushali jokes that he is half in love with the Prince in Hastinapur, secure in her knowledge that she is right; Bhanumati smiles serenely whenever she mentions it again, and Suyodhan looks away in confusion. All things he has he owes Suyodhan, and all things he has he pours faithfully into Suyodhan’s lap. But there are sorrows that are his own, and his precious store of secrets.

He says, “We spoke of women.”


End file.
